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Mystery of the whale wallet holding 50% of Axie Infinity’s SLP supply

August 31, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Contrary to the obvious explanation, this massive whale wallet is not owned by Axie Infinity or the company behind it, Sky Mavis.

For nearly a year now, a mysterious Axie Infinity wallet has been quietly amassing billions of Smooth Love Potion (SLP), the in-game cryptocurrency powering one of the industry’s most popular play-to-earn (P2E) crypto games.

Today, the anonymous whale wallet now holds a little over 22 billion SLP — more than 50% the total circulating supply of the token.

The problem? No one knows who it belongs to and what their intentions are.

The wallet in question was brought to Cointelegraph’s attention by Axie Infinity player and tech co-founder Michael Benko, who first caught wind of this mysterious wallet on Aug. 25.

Should we be worried?

Benko told Cointelegraph he became concerned about the wallet given the amount of SLP it had gathered in a relatively short amount of time, which could potentially wreak havoc on the game’s ecosystem.

“The significance of a wallet holding so much SLP, if it's an individual person, gives that person a huge amount of control over an economy, especially in an economy where it’s so hard to mint a token.”

Launched in 2021, Axie Infinity is a blockchain-based game in which players purchase NFTs of cartoon creatures which they breed and fight against other players in turn-based gameplay.

SLP is earned by players for completing daily quests, battling other players in the “Arena” mode or playing against AI in the “Adventure” mode. The SLP can be used for breeding Axies, crafting in-game runes and charms (power-ups), and can be sold on exchanges.

Benko noted that as per the latest season update, an average Axie Infinity player can generate between 10 to 70 SLP per day, depending on how good they are at the game.

“So it is a concern, if someone's sitting there with 22 billion SLP [...] they could really keep the price flat or keep the price down when it actually should, by natural market conditions, be going up.”

The cryptocurrency is currently priced at $0.004, down 99% from an all time high of $0.40 on Jul. 13, 2021, according to Coingecko.

Who owns it?

Theories explaining the existence of the wallet have only led to dead-ends so far.

Benko initially theorized that the wallet was “some system Axie Infinity had to automatically distribute SLP to players who earned it.”

However, Sky Mavis co-founder and COO Aleksander Larson told Cointelegraph that neither Sky Mavis nor Axie Infinity hold any of the game’s cryptocurrency, stating:

“All tokens in existence have been created by players.”

Yield Guild Games co-founder Gabby Dizon — one of the major DAOs for players of Axie — said YGG didn’t own the wallet and suggested it could be a wallet used by an exchange to hold liquidity.

“Don't think this is ours as we typically use all of our minted SLP for breeding,” said Dizon, adding that “the most likely explanation is that an exchange is holding it for their liquidity.”

Benko however noted that while many SLP transactions saw Binance as a sender or recipient for many transactions, upon looking at the transactions, he doesn’t believe that it is a wallet owned by the crypto exchange.

“Binance seems to have an official wallet [already] and this doesn't seem to be that wallet.”

Cointelegraph reached out to Binance for comment but has not received a response at the time of writing.

If you have any theories on who is behind the wallet contact felixng at cointelegraph.com

YGG-backed Oasys blockchain hopes to take P2E gaming mainstream

February 17, 2022 Coin Telegraph

bandai namco

“Gaming is the best use case the world has ever seen for blockchain and I believe we will see 10 million wallets interacting with blockchain games before the end of this year,” said Oasys founding member Gabby Dizon.

The team behind the new gaming-focused proof-of-stake blockchain Oasys say that it’s been designed to increase mainstream play-to-earn (P2E) adoption.

The Singapore-based firm (Oasys PTE. LTD) behind the new chain touts its scalability, eco-friendly PoS blockchain, “zero gas fee experience” and the portability of digital assets between different projects built on the blockchain as key drawcards for developers and users.

The founding team includes a host of names from top crypto and gaming firms including Bandai Namco Research president and CEO Hajime Nakatani, Sega Corporation co-COO Shuji Utsumi, double.jump.tokyo CEO Hironobu Ueno, Thirdverse CEO Hironao Kunimitsu and Yield Guild Games (YGG) co-founder Gabby Dizon.

The Oasys blockchain officially launched on Feb. 7 and has partnered initially with 21 gaming and Web3 tech companies to act as validators, with Dizon’s crypto gaming guild YGG signed on as one of the first.

As part of the launch last week, Sega Corporation’s Utsumi highlighted the importance of building a scalable blockchain gaming ecosystem that also recognizes “the need to have an eco-friendly platform that takes into account important societal and cultural considerations.”

The much debated environmental impacts of proof of work blockchains have been a bone of contention for many in the traditional gaming community, who have pushed back against several firms that have started to make moves into the NFT sector.

Speaking with Cointelegraph, YGG co-founder Dizon echoed Utsumi’s environmental sentiments when he stated that:

“For developers, there will always be trade-offs in choosing the right blockchain to build on and each one is focused on solving different challenges and optimizing certain features. Oasys is focused on improving user experience for gamers through scalability while also reducing environmental impact.”

While Dizon was tight-lipped on any upcoming announcements or partnerships, the YGG co-founder stated that the Oasys team's ties to Japan via its founders would help create “a gateway to the blockchain for major Japanese IP.”

“Japan has always been a world leader in gaming and its cultural influence has had a huge impact in shaping the industry as we know it today,” he said.

Speaking on the blockchain gaming sector in general, Dizon bullishly predicted that the market could see more than a 7X increase on the 1.4 million active wallets that interacted daily with blockchain gaming apps as of late 2021.

“Gaming is the best use case the world has ever seen for blockchain and I believe we will see 10 million wallets interacting with blockchain games before the end of this year,” he said.

Oasys head of marketing Kokushi Hattori said that the company expects numerous mainstream gaming companies to launch P2E games in 2022, and its gaming blockchain was developed to be at the forefront of the “explosive growth” of the sector:

“To realize that prediction, Oasys decided to lead rather than follow and optimize itself and its architecture to support mainstream adoption starting with gamers and ending with consumer users.”

“In the near short term, our main focus will be to attract game developers, content creators and gamers to start building early adoption among the gaming community so gamers can connect, create and play within the Metaverse,” he added.

Gone in 31 seconds: Yield Guild Games’ IDO raises $12.5M from just 32 participants

July 28, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Gone in 31 seconds: Yield Guild Games’ IDO raises .5M from just 32 participants

Coin Telegraph

The $12.6 million initial DEX offering of play-to-earn collective, Yield Guild Games, sold out in just 31 seconds to just 32 participants.

Yield Guild Games (YGG), a collective of play-to-earn gamers, completed its initial DEX offering via SushiSwap’s Miso platform in under a minute earlier today.

The offering saw YGG raise roughly $12.5 million on July 27, with the token sale distributing 25 million tokens or 2.5% of the project’s 1 billion token supply via a dutch auction. The YGG tokens were sold for roughly $0.50 each.

Disappointed investors criticized the sale after 32 wallets exhausted the allocation in 31 seconds, even though YGG’s Discord membership exceeds 47,000.

A single address appears to have been able to nab 4.5 million tokens or 18% of the coins available in the offering, although onlookers have speculated the purchaser was likely a pool.

32 participants / Biggest ape (looks like a pool) did 4.5milly pic.twitter.com/EpR69WXKTT
— Darren Lau (@Darrenlautf) July 27, 2021

YGG co-founder, Gabby Dizon told Cointelegraph the project has been in touch with some of the buyers, noting the purchasing addresses represented groups of long-term community members who had “[pooled] capital together for a large purchase.”

“So it's not just 32 whales that bought in, it was 32 wallets that represented different groups of long term believers of our vision.”

Dizon also noted the token is scheduled to begin trading on SushiSwap later today with plenty of liquidity, providing investors additional opportunities to access the YGG token.

In a blog post, Dizon thanked the project’s community for its support and participation, stating: “We are looking forward to kicking off our community airdrop where YGG tokens will be given to the most active and engaged members of our guild, especially those who have been with us from the beginning.”

Moving forward, Yield Guild Games will soon complete a community airdrop distributing tokens to its most active members. The project will also launch a community mining program soon.

YGG also intends to expand its sponsorship program, which facilitates the donation of Axie Infinity in-game currency Small Love Potion (SLP) to YGG players for breeding Axies — collectible fantasy creatures that inhabit the game.

Last month, YGG raised $4 million in a Series A funding round featuring participation from Mechanism Capital, ParaFi Capital, and lead investor Bitkraft Ventures.

Gabby Dizon

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